It's called a pay phone -- we all expect to pay something for that call.

But really, $14.98?

Leaving for a quick trip out of Portland International Airport earlier this month, Michael Fevurly found he'd forgotten his cell phone and made three quick local calls from a pay phone, charging them to his credit card. He returned home three days later and, after checking with his credit card company, found he'd been charged $14.98 for each call, each less than a minute long.

Most readers side with retailer in fridge standoff

Four out of five respondents tell The Desk that the appliance store owner did all he could.

Last week, The Desk asked readers to make the call on the fridge faceoff.

The question: Was the retailer right to walk away after several
attempts at helping a customer, or should the consumer get a second
chance at a refund and help with moving her old refrigerator out of the
garage and into the house?

Most of you put the consumer on ice.

Out of 25 calls, e-mails and blog posts, 20 sided with retailer Jim
Riegelmann, who felt he'd done enough after offering consumer Vikki
Britton a brand-new replacement for her malfunctioning fridge and,
finally, a full cash refund -- including half the cash she paid toward
an extended warranty.

Still, five of you said, no matter the circumstances, retailers should
honor consumers' desires -- especially in this case, as Britton's
icemaker remains broken. They said the store owner should just rise
above the back-and-forthing and hand over the cash or a new
refrigerator.

Here's what a few of you had to say. Remarks have been edited for brevity and clarity:

"Riegelmann did what he should have done to please the customer. The
consumer appears to have overstepped the bounds of civility and the
good faith offered by the retailer to make the situation right." --Tom
Besson of Hillsboro

"As a former small-business owner with my husband, we had our share of
impossible-to-please customers. Let's face it, there are just some
people that no matter what you do you can never please -- they will
always find something wrong. Riegelmann's in the end went above and
beyond by offering to take the refrigerator back and refund her money."
-- LynnAnne Weaver

"Both parties are at fault, but not equally. First, Riegelmann should
have sent two checks with his employees. I think most people have dealt
with companies who promise a refund and never deliver. However, Britton
is in the wrong if, as Riegelmann alleges, she has sent abusive phone
calls and letters. Britton's solution is the winner. Riegelmann risks
losing future customers if he comes off as too petty here." -- Josh
Alder of Beaverton

"Imagine that you live in a kingdom where the king is unreasonable,
unfair and crazy. This is what life is sometimes like when you run a
business. The customers are sometimes unreasonable, unfair and crazy.
It's part of life. It's what retailers sign up for when they go into
business." -- Gary Condren of Vancouver

"Although I'm disappointed that Riegelmann is not stepping forward with
any positive ways to resolve the impasse, it is definitely an impasse.
There is suspicion and ego involved on both sides. My suggestion is
that Britton keep the refrigerator. I suspect neither party wants to
have contact with the other anymore, so I suggest Riegelmann give back
the $75 for the rest of the warranty. As a matter of good faith, I
would even encourage Riegelmann to give back the full amount of the
warranty. Britton can use that money to get a serviceperson of her own
choosing to fix the icemaker. The stress and negative energy of the
drama is not worth any amount of money or additional time. Life is not
meant to be hurtful, and our ego is not meant to drive us." -- Vicky,
posted on The Desk's blog.

--Laura Gunderson

Fevurly says he expected the calls to be relatively spendy -- phones at the airport have big red tags alerting callers they'll be charged $1 for four minutes of a long-distance call in the United States. At the coin slot, the phones state it's 50 cents for a local call.

"I made the calls based on that information," he says. "I never, in my worst nightmares, expected each phone call to be $14.98."

Now, the rules seem rather basic. The Oregon Public Utility Commission requires that pay phones in Oregon be labeled with specific information, including the price of the local call. Of course, it's never that easy.

When the Telecommunications Act of 1996 reworked who owns and operates pay phones, ensuing legislation allowed the marketplace to set its own rates for local calls. The Federal Communications Commission, which did not return repeated calls from The Desk seeking comment, has said the move was made to encourage greater competition, or rather, more phones and more affordable prices.

But pay phones were snapped up by a slew of small companies -- Iowa-based FSH Communications owns PDX pay phones -- that end up passing on fees from others, namely long-distance operators and credit card companies, that often jack up prices.

Now, somewhat hilariously, the FCC offers a help sheet in its consumer affairs section titled "Hang up on high pay phone rates." (www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/PhoneWise.html)

The PUC says its rules still apply to coin calls, meaning FSH and others must tell callers how much the local call will cost if they're plunking in quarters. But you're on your own with credit card calls, as those are routed through other companies that are not required to post such charges -- though they must tell you if you ask.

Laws also require the companies that own the pay phones and those that provide operators to post identifying information on the phone. If you must make a call and are worried about charges, jot down the companies' names, addresses and phone numbers.

Here's the PUC's advice about making local calls with credit cards: Don't do it "unless it is so important that price doesn't matter," says Bob Valdez, the PUC's spokesman.

If the call is that important, he says, navigate the operator menu to the option that provides a rate quote (On PDX phones, wait for the third option to reach an operator). Still, Valdez says, the rate you're quoted and the actual charge could be higher. He recommends using prepaid calling cards, which limits how much you can be charged and how much financial information you share with a company you're not familiar with.

Steve Johnson, a PDX spokesman, also recommends prepaid calling cards, which he says are sold throughout the airport. Johnson says PDX has attempted to warn consumers, posting signs saying credit and calling cards may be assessed additional fees.

"Always dial 0 for a rate quote before using a credit card or making a non-coin call," the sign says.

Now if the signs had been easy to see, they might have helped Fevurly. However, a quick scan of PDX's phones found them a bit hit or miss.

For instance, the sign -- slightly larger than a postcard -- hung near the northern terminals is at the center of a bank of 10 phones. The sign wasn't posted near three phones at the southern terminal's security checkpoint and in arrivals, the southernmost circular stand of four phones had signs posted over three of four phones, while a more centrally located round had signs over only one of four phones.

Kelli Palazzo, the FSH account executive who works with PDX, says the company must follow airport rules, but that FSH aims to have signs over every phone.

"It's hard; customers get busy and they don't pay attention to the signs," Palazzo says. "It can be expensive. We don't hide that."

Palazzo couldn't provide the rate for a local call out of PDX on a credit card, saying only that it varies, along with the fees each credit card company applies.

Consumer advocates complain about how quickly pay phone rates can rack up and that there isn't much incentive for businesses that offer pay phones, which receive commission on the phones' revenues, to look for providers with lower costs.

The Port of Portland, which receives a 10 percent commission from FSH's phones, receives one complaint a month about excessive charges, Johnson says. Although credit card companies' processing fees are part of the steep rate, he says, pay phone owner FSH has been good about refunding angry customers' call charges.

Palazzo says the added charges are out of FSH's control, so she calls anyone who complains personally and provides refunds when it's "justified."

Fevurly, in fact, anticipates a refund from FSH. He called the company and its partner, International Satellite Communications, which provides the operators who hook up credit card calls. Although his credit card company had first posted charges of $14.98, he'd ultimately been charged $11 per call for two and $13 for the third.

"I'll never use a pay phone again unless I have coins," says Fevurly, who estimates he spent three hours writing complaint letters, freaking out and following up. "It seems insane to me that these companies can charge so much but everyone turns a blind eye."